States offer options for switch from paper to online

In 2006, Louisiana's system for disclosing candidates' campaign contributions to the public looked a lot like Arkansas'.



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Both states required political candidates to file only paper copies of contribution and spending reports. Interested voters could access them online but had to eyeball and tabulate them page by page.

That's still the campaign-finance reporting system in place in Arkansas.

Neighboring Louisiana updated its practices several years ago.

By 2008, with backing from key legislators and newly elected Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal, a new state law required Louisiana candidates who raised at least $25,000 in contributions for their races to file electronically, according to Kathleen Allen, administrator of the Louisiana Ethics Administration in Baton Rouge. The state agency oversees election ethics.

By January 2010, the law stiffened to require all candidates for Louisiana statewide and legislative offices, as well certain other candidates, to file contribution and spending reports into a computerized system, Allen said.

Today, voters can search in a few minutes to learn how much money Wal-Mart Stores Inc. of Bentonville, for example, has given to Jindal.

To obtain the same information for Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe's campaigns would take hours, even days, of sorting through hundreds of pages of paper reports.

Here are some ways states have updated their campaign-finance reporting systems in recent years, according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette's survey of Arkansas and neighboring states, and interviews with national campaign-finance experts.

• Phase in requirements for candidates to file their campaign reports electronically. Other states have targeted statewide and legislative races. They also mandated electronic filing, at least at first, for the biggest-money races or campaigns in more populous areas.

Many states move gradually toward requiring all candidates -- or at least those for major offices -- to file their information electronically, said Peter Quist, research director of the National Institute on Money in State Politics.

"It is common for states to adopt electronic filing systems that are optional, as a first step toward moving away from paper reports. Or make [the electronic filing] mandatory only for filers who raise above a certain amount of money," Quist said.

• Pay workers to type into a computer database the campaign-finance information originally filed on paper.

States, including North Carolina and Tennessee, enter information from paper campaign reports into computerized systems. That practice can be expensive, experts say, but it's another way to get the information before the public in a more useful format.

This year, the North Carolina General Assembly moved away from that approach. Legislators approved a law that requires state candidates to file campaign-finance reports electronically beginning in 2017. That's when new computer software to handle the system is supposed to be in place.

• Don't allow candidates to take shortcuts with their paper filing. Arkansas law permits candidates to fill out the first few pages of paper reports, then attach copies of computer-generated lists or spreadsheets of their own designs.

The computer list is supposed to contain required information. But Arkansas doesn't audit campaign reports, and sometimes the lists aren't complete, the Democrat-Gazette's survey found. Those candidate-generated lists are often hard to read, as well.

Arkansas Ethics Commission director Graham Sloan said the state allows candidates to attach computer-generated sheets to help them save time in campaign-finance filing.

Even when paper forms were all that was required in Louisiana, candidates still had to fill out the actual forms or similar ones, Allen said.

"It had to look like ours. If the format was not similar to ours ... we've asked candidates to redo it."

SundayMonday on 08/17/2014

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